The employability advantage: embedding skills through a university-wide language programme

Tiziana Cervi-Wilson, Billy Brick

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

    309 Downloads (Pure)

    Abstract

    In an ever unstable job market, improving the employability skills of graduates comes very high in the priorities of languages departments. As the employment of graduates appears among the performance indicators of institutions in higher education, universities are focussing more and more upon the development of employability related skills to enhance students’ prospects in the job market. All UK universities are measured on the first jobs that their students acquire after graduation. In response to this, Coventry University implemented numerous new strategies to emphasise and stress the importance of education for employability. This chapter will report on the Institution-Wide Language Provision (IWLP) and its explicit link to the higher education employability agenda. IWLPs typically cater for students who want to study a language alongside their degree subject in addition to, or as part of, their main degree course. Uniquely, Coventry University offers language modules to undergraduate students as part of a scheme called Add+vantage. These modules are designed to embed employability into undergraduate courses, allowing students to demonstrate language skills and formal learning when entering the graduate job market. The Add+vantage modules are taught over an eleven-week semester, with the eleventh week solely dedicated to employability.
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationEmployability for languages: a handbook
    EditorsErika Corradini, Kate Borthwick, Angela Gallagher-Brett
    Place of PublicationDublin, Ireland
    PublisherResearch-publishing.net
    Pages149-153
    ISBN (Print)978-1-908416-38-4, 978-1-908416-39-1, 978-1-908416-37-7
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 25 Jun 2016

    Bibliographical note

    This chapter is under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence

    Keywords

    • institution-wide languages programme
    • IWLP
    • employability
    • languages
    • common European framework of reference for languages
    • CEFR

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'The employability advantage: embedding skills through a university-wide language programme'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this